This patent application includes a microfiche appendix comprising the preferred software program according to the invention.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention in general relates to programmable fluid detectors and more particularly to such detectors that can differentiate between the presence of hydrocarbons, water, and the dry condition.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The contamination of ground water by hydrocarbon leaking from underground tanks has become a serious problem in recent years, and leak detectors that can monitor the environment in the vicinity of a tank and can differentiate between hydrocarbon, water and the dry condition and provide an alarm on the detection of hydrocarbon have been developed. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,033 issued to Raymond J. Andrejasich. Generally, such detectors include many probes connected to a central controller. As the geophysical environments of hydrocarbon storage tanks and the nature of the failure of such tanks has become more fully understood, it has become clear that a detector that is programmable would be highly desirable. One such programmable detector is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,644,354. That patent describes a fluid detector that includes a relay that can be programmed to be activated upon any combination of the dry, hydrocarbon or wet conditions. However, the condition to which the relay is programmed is the same for all probes connected to the system.